Rikki Rockett Says Poison Members Learned to ‘Pick Battles’

Poison drummer Rikki Rockett recently owned up to feeling some “resentment” over singer Bret Michaels’ apparent preference to focus on solo activities. But in a new interview, he explained that the band had learned the secret of longevity was to give each other space.

“The fact of the matter is we’re doing this because we love the band Poison,” Rockett said in a new interview with Long Island Pulse. “It’s our baby, so we all take turns taking care of it in different ways. We want to get along. We want to make it work.”

But, he continued, “that doesn’t mean that we have to go to each others’ houses every day. A lot of times, people say, ‘Oh, you guys are like brothers.’ Well, let me tell you, I wouldn’t want to live with my sister. I love her to death, but I don’t want to live with her! And I don’t want to live with the band. Love them to death, but we get up there, we do our job, we relate in the best ways that we can, and you’ve got to take a break from each other a little bit. The secret to longevity in a band is knowing really how far you can extend yourself to somebody. To know when to back off a little bit and to pick your battles.”

Joking that having separate tour buses helped them “get along just fine,” Rockett also discussed how life on the road had improved as time passed. “It’s more comfortable. Period. I really enjoy it,” he said. “Man, we were all crammed together; we didn’t have much money. We didn’t start making money until the late ‘80s, really. The first couple of records, you’re in debt. But the buses, the accommodations, how you roll … it’s better these days. … We hit our 20th anniversary, and at 20 years, we said, ‘It’s time that we get separate buses. We’ve earned it.’ And this way, we won’t kill each other and can keep doing this for a long time.”

Rockett recently speculated on the chances and nature of future Poison material, predicting there would be new music “at some point in some capacity.” In the new interview, he said “there is nothing for me to announce right now in that way. We have talked about doing new music, but nothing that I can tell you, ‘Yeah, we’re going to do this.’”

The band’s current North American tour with Cheap Trick continues until July 1.